MANOR AI
Create an MVP for AI based property management product.
Updates
Best Western Hotels & Resorts now uses our product for internal management.
The Most Current Prototype
Market Research
Applied architectural expertise to guide market analysis.
Handoff to Engineer
Ensured smooth collaboration with engineers.
Time
November 23 - August 24
Managing repetitive inquires.
(maintenance requests, tenant application, etc)
Spending too much time on tasks.
Streamlining manage process.
Provide a platform that better reduces time and cost through simple workflows to address needs for landlords.
Tools
Manor AI is a property management product that helps landlord manage properties by automating tasks completion, time tracking and file management.
Team
4 designers, 2 eigineers
101B
#A. My Task
#3. Task Archive
User Interview
Conducted interviews to gather user insights.
Fund Raising
Helped secure funding by presenting the project vision.
1 . Work Space
Tasks are automatically organized by type.
AI chatbot is available for users with inquiries and repetitive questions.
A built-in calendar allows for easy manual scheduling and tracking of upcoming tasks
A summary section provides a quick glimpse of task progress and completion status.
Archive Overview: Displays numbers like project amount, invoices and task need reviews, along with percentage changes compared to the past.
Each task card provides essential details, such as task agent, status, and related documents, with grid or list views.
#B. AI Agent Detail
#4. Chat History
Agent Overview: Displays key metrics like project amount, completed actions, and hours spent to give a quick summary of the agent's performance.
Data Visualization: A bar chart shows inquiries and completions over time.
Knowledge Access: A section to access relevant knowledge groups, allowing for quick reference and sharing.
Task in progress and completed tasks with time tracking, status, and involved agents, ensuring clear visibility.
AI Training: After discussions with engineers, we recognized the need to store all previous conversations. This data is now used to train our AI agent.
Users can continue using this window to reply to messages.
Working as a founding designer
Build partnership with industry leader.
From our previous project, Home Ginkgo, we attracted several landlords who expressed further interest in improving their property management experience. We identified 2 key user types: small business landlords managing a few investment properties and real estate professionals managing large numbers of units.
Real Estate Managers
Based on user interviews, we created user personas that helped us further understand the users and empathize their needs.
Landlords need automated tools to save time and reduce repetitive inquiries.
Real estate professionals value tools that centralize and organize information for large-scale operations.
Key Insights
Opportunity
2. Knowledge Group
Knowledge Group provides a space for users manually input and organize data to AI agents.
Access Control : Enables users to create new knowledge groups for managing access.
IMPACT
Secured $1M angle funding
I played a pivotal role in securing funding by engaging directly with investors and leveraging minimal resources to maximize investor interest.
Established a partnership with Best Western Hotels, where my team was hired to leverage Manor AI as the foundation for developing a new product, REV AI.
By refining our workspace and optimizing key user journeys, we boosted user acquisition and retention, driving a 46% growth in the user base over six months.
Process
Competitor Analysis
We conducted an analysis of several PMS firms includes established players alongside emerging startups. This helped us prioritize the MVP elements for the first phase of development. After analyzing the competition, we marked few most used features as our target, showing with blue star.
User Persona
User Interview
Small Business Landlords
We conducted 1:1 online interviews with 10 participants, discussing topics ranging from general property management challenges to specific product feedback. Below are a few key insights that stood out to us.
What can we do to replace the jobs done by the current property managers?
Information Architecture
Based on the research, the information architecture is structured into key sections: Dashboard, Workspace, Agent Market, and Knowledge,each serving specific user needs.
A
We analyzed trending AI products with chat features to understand how they serve users. This help us determine how we can integrate similar features into our product.
A
How to organize repetitive tasks ?
Issue : Users dislike the manual task completion status and desire for automated system to track progress.
Solution: Shifted focus to automate task tracking, removing the need for manual updates.
How to increase chatbot utilization?
B
Issue: Adding an automated progress bar led to a cluttered interface with too much information displayed at once.
Solution: Reduced unnecessary details and adopted a cleaner layout to improve readability and focus.
Next step
Design
Handled wireframes to high-fidelity design.
Leadership
Recruited and mentored team interns.
Figma, Figjam
ACHIEVED 46% USER GROWTH
Takeways
Final Design
of property management industry market size in the US by 2022.
20.14B
of property management software market size in the US by 2022.
Our CEO notice a significant needs in the property management market and teamed up with a group to create a solution.
Final Design
After gathering user and stakeholder feedback, we simplified the interface to focus on task categories, case counts, and reference images. This streamlined approach reduces visual clutter and enhances usability.
B
We conducted interviews with 5 users to identify the best placement for the chat screen to improve utilization, we discovered that users rarely used the AI chatbot for property management, despite it being designed to help them complete tasks. The interview conclusion is moving the chat to the top improves visibility.
Placing the chat screen at the bottom further decrease the utilization rate.
Positioning the chat window at the right side improves utilization rate but hide the calendar tool.
System thinking for scale, streamline the design
Implement Predictive Analytics to anticipate user needs and enhance decision-making.
Continue exploring new features to meet landlords' needs while incorporating ongoing usability testing for continuous improvement.
Optimize and elevate the interface and user interface (UI) design.
Working at a startup requires embracing uncertainty and adapting to rapid changes.
Manor AI could benefit from greater user feedback and more engagement from stakeholders.
Collaborating closely with engineers taught me valuable lessons about the challenges and limitations of turning designs into functional products.